


wake up with

by asymmetric



Category: 5 Seconds of Summer (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-08
Updated: 2014-07-08
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:43:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asymmetric/pseuds/asymmetric
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calum had been under the lights for ten minutes and he was already sweating. </p>
<p>(in which they film a lyric video and familiar things gain new meanings)</p>
            </blockquote>





	wake up with

**Author's Note:**

> so this came about because i a) watched the amnesia lyric video and b) someone on my dash said they wanted malum fic based on the video that had a happy ending. this is definitely not what they wanted. 
> 
> this fic is also known as "ace tried to write something serious but then ashton happened". scenes he's not in are serious? possibly? I don't really know what this is. have some sleepy malum.

Calum had been under the lights for ten minutes and he was already sweating.

The studio they were shooting in wasn't a very large space, meant to be intimate, to "put them in the right mood" for the video. It felt like all the air in the room had been sucked out, leaving only heat. There was a strange, clinging dampness in the air that turned his vest to paper and stuck it to his skin. He wasn't sure how "hot and uncomfortable" was the right mood, and he squirmed on the stool, fussing with the straps of his top.

"Calum, we just need you to hold still and look sad, okay? Or at least serious. Won't be too long, buddy."

Something about the way the director said "buddy" irritated him, made him feel like a little kid at school picture day. But this music video was going to be brilliant—they all had thought so when the idea was pitched—so he held still, looked at the camera, and tried to think sad thoughts.

****

They all liked the song. Calum liked singing his bits and he liked performing it live. It was a good breather song in between their more high energy ones, and he figured every album needed a sad song. Every band needed a few good slow songs.

The problem was that he couldn't really relate to it. The situation described in the song wasn't one he was familiar with, one that had happened to him before. It bothered him that he was sitting there with the camera on him—looking around and turning his head when the director told him to, his own voice singing their song in the background—and he wasn't feeling the lyrics right down to his bones. It hadn't seemed to matter as much with their other music videos. But this one wasn't fun or silly. It was sad.

Ashton and Luke had already filmed their parts for the video. Ashton had barely been able to keep it together the whole time they were filming him, dissolving into giggles as soon as he turned to to look at the camera (part of it may have had to do with Michael making stupid faces at him behind the cameraman's back).

"Ashton, this is serious!" Luke had yelled. He'd been laughing too.

"Super serious," Ashton said, nodding. "Serious business."

"So serious," Michael grunted. "Soooo serious."

Calum wasn't surprised when they all got kicked out of the room a couple minutes later.

He had poked his head back in when they got Luke to film his parts and Luke—Luke was good. He looked like he was somewhere far away and thinking deep thoughts as he raised his head and stared into the camera, and Calum felt a jealous, bitter urge to make fun of him, to yell across the room and mess up his focus. But Luke had seen him then and had smiled, a little nervously, and said, "how 'm I doing? As bad as Ashton?"

"No one could be as bad as Ashton," Calum had said automatically, then added, more sincerely, "you're doing good, mate. You're good at looking sad."

His face twisted up at the end of the sentence, hearing his own words back, and Luke made a face at him in response, both of them registering the weirdness of complimenting someone on how miserable they could look. But then the director was saying that they needed another take, and Calum decided he'd intruded enough and went back into the hallway to wait for his turn.

Ashton and Michael had disappeared somewhere, and the empty hallway stretched out in front of Calum, extending away from him on both sides. He started to walk down the right, his footsteps echoing. He felt strange and slow in the syrupy warm air. The inside of his chest was hollow and open, crisp and cold compared to the oppressive push of heat. He thought if he inhaled he would break it somehow, burst the bubble of clean inside him.

He took a breath and stepped into the first open door he came across.

It was the room they'd been told would be the set for most of the video, a bedroom with pictures on the walls and books and clothes and junk scattered on the floor. The illusion was broken only by the various cameras set up all along the other half of the room. The room was mostly in shadow, the only real light source coming from the open door he was now standing in.

Michael was sitting on the bed, texting, as easily as if it was his own room and not a fake set that they probably weren't supposed to be touching. Calum paused in the doorway, staring at Michael's green head bowed over his phone, struck suddenly by the memory of the first day he went over to Michael's house when they were kids, Michael running and jumping on his bed and telling Calum that he could "sit next to me if you like, but you don't touch anything unless I say so." Michael, blond and small and fierce.

"Where's Ash?" he asked.

"I think he's outside," Michael said, not looking up from his phone. "He said something about going to find someone."

Michael had only two ways he answered questions: overly specific or incredibly vague.

"Are we allowed to be in here?" Calum said, still hovering in the doorway.

"There's no one in here," Michael replied—which was pretty much a "no". "They haven't started filming here yet, so it's fine."

"Doesn't that make it less likely to be fine? What if we mess something up?"

"Oh my god, you sound like Luke," Michael groaned. "It's fine, alright?"

Silence fell between them, and Calum couldn't think of anything to break it with. He rubbed his hands over his arms, suddenly struck with a strange chill. It was too empty in this building; he'd barely seen any crew apart from the video director and the two cameramen in the room Luke was filming in. There was a weird illusion of freedom in the absence of people all around them, even though he knew they couldn't just leave if they wanted to. He and Michael couldn't just run off like they used to when they were kids, before they even knew Luke or Ash and fun meant skipping school to go to the park instead of skipping school to go to band practice.

Michael slipped his phone in his pocket and looked up across the room at Calum.

"Come here," he said.

There was a hint of a smile on his face, warning of some sort of devious Michael plot, but Calum was smiling back instinctively, walking across the room up to him. He stopped just in front of Michael, his legs spread slightly around Michael's knees. He cast a shadow over Michael's body, and Michael's eyes staring up at him were liquid black, his teeth glinting dully.

"What?" Calum asked, when Michael didn't say anything more.

Abruptly, Michael's grin grew and he reached up, yanking Calum down onto the bed next to him. The room swirled in front of Calum's eyes, the impact of the mattress against his back driving a gasp of air out of him, and then suddenly the world reoriented itself, centring on Michael's smile just above him.

"We're gonna get in trouble, aren't we," Calum said, but he was smiling too, matching Michael tooth for tooth. He'd always been a sucker for Michael's stupid ideas.

"For lying on a bed?" Michael snorted. "Come on."

His face disappeared from Calum's vision as he flopped down fully next to him, and Calum felt too comfortable, too tired, to turn his head so he could keep looking at him. He stared up at the ceiling and wondered if anyone would miss him if he were to just fall asleep here.

Michael shifted next to him and Calum felt the back of their wrists knock together. He thought about moving, but his body felt so heavy, and it was easier to stay still as Michael rolled closer.

"I just figure that we're doing the video people a favour," Michael said at length. "You know, 'cause this is supposed to be a bed that two people slept in before the girl left. We're just messing it up for 'em. So it looks like lovers were here."

Calum turned his head at that and found that Michael was already looking at him, calm and measured and too close, his chin tucked in to rest on Calum's shoulder. Calum froze, watching him. He felt like his face was on standby, his mouth hanging half open, waiting for the joke so he could smile or laugh. But Michael just kept looking at him, and a strange anxiety stirred in Calum's chest the longer Michael didn't say anything, the longer the backs of their hands pressed together between their thighs, the longer they lay still on the bed.

And then Michael was letting out some kind of bizarre war cry and flipping himself so he could shove his hips into Calum's right leg, furiously humping away, and Calum felt the laughter burst free from his throat with a surge of relief.

"Get off me!" he yelled, half heartedly fighting off Michael. He could feel Michael giggling against his neck, breath warm on Calum's skin. "This is why I never want to cuddle any of you guys anymore, you always make it weird!"

"We do?" Michael exclaimed, sagging against Calum's chest. "How do you not remember the twitcam where you humped both Ashton and Luke? You were like, practically fucking Luke."

"It's manly when I do it," Calum retorted. He didn't really know what he was saying anymore, what he was trying to argue. Michael was heavy on top of him, but somehow it was comforting instead of stifling.

"So manly," Michael agreed. "Like, gay sex manly. 'S more manly because there's more guys."

"Manly cuddles."

"Manly."

They'd said the word too many times and it had officially lost all meaning. Calum closed his eyes and tipped his cheek against the softness of Michael's hair. With his eyes closed, it was easy to pretend they were kids again, sprawled on Michael's bed after running around outside.

"It'll be your turn soon," Michael said.

"What?"

"You know. Your turn to film. I called last, and Luke's almost done, right?"

"How am I supposed to do it?"

He felt stupid as soon as he said it.

"What do you mean?" Michael asked. "You just sit in front of the camera. This is easier than some of the stuff we've done before for other videos."

"No, I mean—how am I supposed to feel it and be all sad, I've never had a girlfriend leave and then me be all depressed about it."

He'd dated people before, sure. But he'd never had a "i remember the makeup running down your face" dramatic moment about them, with dramatic, sad feelings involved.

"Just pretend."

"What if I suck at pretending?"

It was stupid, stupid to care so much about his performance in a lyric video, but the room was dark around them and Michael was familiar against him and it felt safe, maybe, to worry about stupid things.

Michael sighed.

"Then don't pretend," Michael said. "Just think of someone who you'd miss if they disappeared. Someone you'd miss so much that you'd wanna forget you ever knew them."

_I'd miss you_ , Calum thought, and it hit like a punch in the gut. He pulled his head away from Michael's, staring up at the ceiling.

"Calum?" Michael said, and he sounded like he was just on the edge of confusion, and Calum had heard that voice saying his name for years and years, so many times, so familiar—

And then there was another voice, saying his name as well. And there was a crew member in the doorway, staring at them in irritation. And it was Calum's turn to film.

****

"We just need a couple more takes, alright, Calum? Just relax, buddy, you're doing fine."

They were annoyed with him, Calum was sure of it. He felt like he'd been in here for ages, like the filming of his stuff was taking twice as long because he was so bad. It would have been fine if his nervousness had manifested in him looking grumpy and upset, but instead he just kept breaking into stupid, hysterical giggles every once in a while, or zoning out. It was too hot, was the thing. It was too hot to think about anything other than the way Michael had rolled off of him and how cold his body had felt with him gone. His brain moved slower in the heat, he figured, and he was still stuck in that moment.

The music started up again and Calum closed his eyes for a second, trying to feel it.

Think of someone you'd miss, Michael had said.

"It hurts to know you're happy, yeah, it hurts that you moved on, it's hard to hear your name when I haven't seen you in so long."

Calum opened his eyes.

****

When he and Michael were 13, they stopped being friends for two months.

Like most fights that happen when you're a kid, it was over something stupid, and it felt like the end of the world at the time. Michael had been invited to the birthday party of a kid in their class, a squat little boy named Clay, and Calum hadn't been invited. Calum, of course, assumed that Michael wouldn't go because they were best friends and best friends didn't abandon each other to go to the parties of kids that didn't like their best friends.

Michael went anyway.

Clay lived across the street from Calum back then, which made the lack of invitation a double snub, since Calum could see the party going on right from his window, while he was sitting alone in his bedroom. It felt like he couldn't breathe when he saw Michael there on stupid Clay's front lawn, laughing at some stupid thing stupid Clay had said, tons of other kids from their class running around as well. Calum had never felt stupider in that moment, and he ducked down behind the windowsill, terrified that someone would look up and see him watching and laugh at him for not being cool enough to be invited. Or worse—that Michael would look up and see him. He knew then that seeing Michael making fun of him would be the worst thing in the world.

He cried for hours, sitting there in his room on the floor, feeling so incredibly alone. He had never felt this way in his entire life, and he knew it wasn't just because he hadn't been invited to a stupid party. It was because Michael had, and Michael hadn't decided that being Calum's friend was more important. Michael had chosen someone else over him.

The next day, they fought about it at recess, Michael screaming that he was allowed to be friends with more than one person and that Calum was being a baby and Calum screaming that Michael was selfish and mean and clearly only thought about himself.

And the day after that, Michael was hanging out with Clay at lunch and moving his desk to sit next to him during class. Calum squared his jaw and summoned all of his bitterness and anger as a shield around him and thought, "fine. I'll find better friends."

It didn't take him long to realize that no one else was a friend like Michael though. No one could make him laugh like Michael did, and no one hugged like Michael, and he never felt as comfortable around other people as he always had with Michael. At first it made him even more angry, the realization that Michael was still the best friend he'd ever had and would have, and then it made him sad. He missed him, and he felt stupid for missing him, especially when it seemed like Michael was having the time of his life with Clay.

Calum didn't remember now how the fight exactly ended. He didn't remember if they talked about it properly or if they just started sitting together again out of the blue. He just knew that for two months he was Michael-less and miserable, and then one day they were somehow best friends again, going over to each other's houses all the time and laughing together and eating lunch together, and Clay was back in the corner with his original, weasely friends.

A couple years later, after they were friends with Luke, but before they found Ashton, Calum asked Michael about it, asked why Michael had decided to be friends with him again (because Calum might not remember the details, but he was clear on one thing: it was Michael who ended the feud, not him).

Michael had shrugged.

"Clay made fun of you, and I just realized I wasn't cool with that. And I realized I'd rather be with you."

"Aw, you love me!" Calum crooned.

"So much," Michael deadpanned. "Oh my god Calum, please marry me, you're the hottest, I can't live without you."

Calum snorted root beer out of his nose and thought, _you're the best friend I've ever had, I never want you to leave me again._

****

"That's it, Calum, just like that! Turn your head super slow now to the right—perfect. Whatever you're thinking about, keep it up."

****

When Calum was done filming his parts, he found Michael waiting just outside the room. He was brought up short by the sight of him, staring at Michael's back with his hand frozen on the doorknob. Somehow he'd thought that Michael would still be in the bedroom set, even though they'd been caught.

Michael turned.

"You done?"

Why hadn't he poked his head in and watched Calum filming if he was waiting just outside?

"Yeah," Calum said distractedly. He felt like he was still under the lights, leftover adrenaline buzzing just under his hot skin. He felt like he was underwater, like he'd been underwater since he lay next to Michael on that bed in the dark. He didn't move when Michael approached, and Michael shouldered past him, sticking his tongue out.

Calum laughed, because it seemed like the thing to do. The thing he was always doing around Michael.

He finally shuffled aside, and the door closed behind Michael, leaving him in the hallway. He heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see Ashton loping down the hall towards him.

"Caluuuum," Ashton said, dragging the name out all the way down the length of the corridor. He skidded to a stop and grinned. "Luke and I found vending machines!"

Calum allowed himself to turn and follow him, forgetting about Michael and childhood thoughts he was supposed to have moved past.

****

Ashton's pack of skittles got stuck in the vending machine, and that meant fifteen minutes of the three of them shaking the machine—

"Free my food, you satanic thing!"

"Holy shit, Ashton, it's gonna fall on you and kill you!"

"At least I'd die reunited with my food!"

—absolutely failing at reaching up into the machine—

"Guys. Guys, I think I'm stuck."

"Luke, you're not—okay, nevermind, you might be stuck."

"Shit."

"Ash, stop laughing! These are your damn skittles I sacrificed my arm for!"

"We're gonna have to have all of our concerts and band practices in this hallway now, lads. Give Luke a one-handed guitar. It'll be fine."

"Do they even make one-handed guitars?"

"I hate you both."

—and finally just standing around, skittles-less, after they had wasted all of their energy freeing Luke's arm. Luke had a bright red line on his skin, and he scowled at them when they laughed.

"See if I ever do anything for you guys again," he said. "Forget your skittles, Ash, we're leaving them."

Ashton shuffled up to the vending machine, tenderly laying his hand on the glass over his pack of skittles.

"I'll never forget you," he whispered dramatically.

For what seemed like no reason at all, the skittles fell off the hook and down into the dispenser at the bottom.

They erupted in triumphant, incredulous noise, all grabbing for it at once. Ashton raised the candy over his head like a medal, screaming about the power of love. Calum felt he was going to laugh himself sick, and then finally someone came around the corner to tell them to pipe down, because they were just finishing up with Michael.

Ashton and Luke were now squabbling over who got more of the skittles, but Calum stepped forward, and said to the crew member, "Can I come watch?"

She shrugged.

"If you can be quiet, sure."

****

They were doing the words when Calum stepped into the room. The chorus of the song was ringing out around the space and Michael's hands were covering his face, slowly dragging down his skin, white letters bumping over the spines of his knuckles. Calum could only just see one of his closed eyes, the vulnerable shift of shadowed skin as they flickered once, an "e" sitting bright at the corner of his eyelid. Michael opened his eyes slowly, bringing his hands together, and letting them fall away to his lap. It was all slow, all deliberate, and Michael looked blank in a way that totally unsettled Calum. Like he really was remembering someone he loved telling him they were leaving.

The director called cut and the words disappeared, regular lighting coming up on Michael's face. But his expression didn't change even though the camera was no longer on and the director was saying something about filming the reaction shots now. He just sat there with that same sad face, nodding occasionally to show he was listening.

It honestly wasn't that different than Michael's resting face normally, so Calum didn't know why he felt like he couldn't move, standing there and staring at the boy hunched on a stool, the boy who hadn't noticed him come into the room.

Calum took a step forward, and his foot knocked into a cord on the floor, kicking it a few inches away. And it shouldn't have been loud enough, not with their song playing again in the background, but Michael turned his head and looked straight at Calum.

It was second nature for Calum to smile when Michael's eyes fell on him. It was what he did when he was around Michael; he smiled to say "hi", he smiled to say "I'm listening", he smiled to say "that joke was terrible, man, but I'm here for you anyway". Smiling at Michael was as automatic as laughing when Ashton did stupid things.

But this time, Calum's smile died as soon as it reached his mouth, freezing on his face all twisted and wrong, because Michael wasn't smiling back. Michael was looking him right in the eyes, staring across the room, and his face was open in an expression that wasn't misery, wasn't loss, but was something more, something he could only call intense, like Michael was peeling off every layer of pretend he'd ever worn. Meeting his eyes was like bursting out of the water and taking a breath; the idea that Michael could be unfamiliar to him for even a moment struck him hard, the idea that there was still more to know about him after all these years.

"That's great, Michael, just turn back to the camera now."

Michael blinked once, still looking at Calum, and then turned his head obediently. Without the weight of his gaze, Calum felt too light, like he could just float away if no one held him down. It was too hot. It was too hot.

He stumbled out of the room and stood in the hallway for a long minute, his eyes closed, just listening to Ash and Luke's voices in the distance, until he started feeling like himself again.

****

"Calum?"

He opened his eyes, staring at the mess of wires on the ceiling, trying to get his bearings. He was on the bed in the bedroom set. He must have dozed off waiting for someone to find him.

Michael's voice was calling from the doorway.

"Yeah," Calum said, voice creaky like he'd been asleep for hours instead of only minutes.

"I thought you were dead for a second there," Michael said, and Calum could hear him walking closer. "You weren't moving at all."

Calum closed his eyes again as Michael lay down next to him. Michael wriggled around, trying to get comfortable, and Calum felt his body slide closer to Michael's into the dip in the centre of the mattress. He didn't try to stop it.

"That's what happens when people are asleep," Calum said.

"Shoulda taken a picture. Woulda been cute."

Calum's cheeks went hot and he felt stupid for it.

"You guys are always taking pictures of me sleeping, you creeps."

"It's 'cause it's cute," Michael said simply. "Already told you that."

Some strange, needy part of Calum wanted Michael to say it again. The same part wanted to know what had been up with him before, why he'd looked at Calum like that. But he didn't say anything, just opened his eyes and stared blankly into the darkness of the room.

"Do you remember that fight we had when you started becoming friends with Luke?" Michael asked abruptly.

That was the last thing Calum was expecting him to say.

"What?"

"We had a fight about it and you didn't talk to me that whole weekend because I called Luke some shitty names or something."

Calum could distantly remember it, but it hadn't been super important to him, even at the time. Sure, he liked Luke and thought Michael was being a dick for no reason, but when it was said and done, he was going to choose Michael. He was just upset that Michael was forcing him to choose.

"Yeah, whatever. You didn't like him, but you said you'd give him a chance after that and we all started hanging out."

"It wasn't that I didn't like him."

Michael's voice was getting quieter, and Calum had to shift even closer to hear him, pressing against him until Michael was a long line of heat up his side.

"What do you mean?"

Michael sighed and turned his head away until all Calum could see of his face was the curve of his ear and the line of his jaw, prickled with stubble.

"It was that I thought I was losing you."

Something clenched hard in Calum's chest, and when he opened his mouth, words wouldn't come out. Michael kept talking, fast now, like he needed to get it all out at once.

"I thought you liked him better as, like, a friend, and I thought you were gonna stop hanging out with me. I thought you were going to leave me."

Calum thought about Michael and Clay, and being thirteen and feeling like the world was over. He thought about being fifteen and not wanting to give up a new friend, but also knowing that Michael was worth a hundred new friends. How could they keep misunderstanding each other?

"You're never gonna lose me," he said, and the words didn't seem like nearly enough.

Michael turned his head to stare up at the ceiling, his eyes closed, frowning, and Calum couldn't look away from the lines of his profile. It should have felt familiar, the way it had when they were lying here before, but instead he felt like he was next to a stranger, like there was more space between them than ever before.

Was that what you were thinking about when you were filming, he wanted to ask. Were you thinking about me? When you looked at me like that, were you thinking about me?

"Mikey," he said, and Michael still wasn't looking at him.

Everything he could think of to say didn't fit—too big or too small or just wrong somehow, insufficient to explain what Michael meant to him—and he found himself moving suddenly instead, shifting onto his side and nudging his face up to Michael's, pressing a kiss blindly against his cheek.

His mouth slid, caught the corner of Michael's.

Calum froze. Michael was still beneath him and there was fear running like a living thing through Calum's body, thick and instant. He became aware that it was cold in the room, the heat that had been saturating the air all day gone as if it had never been there, leaving him lost and too clear-headed. He shivered, squeezing his eyes shut, and shifted mindlessly over an inch, lining them up for real and kissing Michael soft and careful.

Michael's mouth fell open on a shaky exhale and then he was turning into Calum's touch. It was an awkward few seconds of silence and fumbling before they fit together properly, and Calum felt something desperate burst through him when Michael slicked his tongue over Calum's bottom lip. Michael's skin was hot under his mouth, almost feverish, and Calum twisted as close to him as he could, the two of them curling into each other on the bed, safe and quiet under the cover of the dark room.

Michael was shaking and Calum was still afraid, but he wound his fingers into the front of Michael's shirt anyway and kissed him over and over, making him familiar again through something new.

****

Before they left for the day, the director showed them some of the footage from earlier, the four of them crowding around a screen to see it.

"Hey, Ashton, they got a few shots of you where you look like you're not about to laugh!" Michael exclaimed. "Congratulations!"

His shoulder jostled against Calum's as he pointed at the screen. Calum didn't move away.

"Shut up, Mr. Dramatic Pointing At The Back Of My Shirt," Ashton muttered.

"You are seriously shit at insults, Ash," Luke said cheerfully. All of his shots looked great, and he was clearly pleased.

When they showed Calum's shots, Michael leaned in and whispered in his ear, "See, you didn't need to worry. You did fine."

All Calum could think about was Michael's breath on his neck, and he could barely remember his earlier panic about filming, his thoughts about Michael leaving him when they were kids. It was hot again, in this room, and he swayed under the delirious feeling of it, letting his body settle against Michael's, enough that Michael's mouth brushed against the corner of his jaw. He found suddenly that he didn't mind the heat anymore.

Ashton and Luke were laughing about something, Luke's arm pressing into Calum's side and the two of them reaching in front of the screen to hit each other, blocking the sight of Michael's filmed face, words and sadness scrolling across it. Their four voices were all singing out around them, singing about people leaving and people wanting to forget, and Calum felt Michael nudge their wrists together, trail his fingers up over Calum's palm to rest against his pulse like a promise.

"It's gonna be a good video," Calum said.

**Author's Note:**

> i am on tumblr now so y'all should pop on over and say hi to me at asymmetricboys


End file.
